'Thank you,' I said. 'And now, before going further, let me tell you that I am violating no confidence; it is not for me to explain more fully here than this: The young lady of whom I am about to speak knows that I am telling you these things. I am not speaking against her will.'

And now his eyes dropped as he said faintly, 'Thank you.'

I next told him in as matter-of-fact a manner as possible how I examined the bag, and how, when all other hope of a clue to the owner failed, I read Miss Jenrys' letters; how, when the first letter failed to give me the owner's address, I read the second in full.

'And now,' I said to him, 'before I go further, let me remind you once more that I speak by permission, and add, on my own behalf, that, even thus authorized, I would not utter what I am about to say if I did not believe that by so doing I can set right a wrong, a worse wrong done to you than that of attempting your life—a blow at your honour, in fact.'

He started, and then, as if remembering his condition, said with wonderful self-restraint, 'Go on, please.'

And I did go on. Before I paused again I had told him almost word for word, as it was implanted upon my memory, the story June Jenrys had written to her friend, the story of that ante-Lenten party—just the fact, omitting her expressions of preference. I told the story as I would have told it of a dear sister whose maidenly pride was precious to me; told how she had gone, at his request, to speak with him in the conservatory, and how, there, she had heard, herself unseen, those flippant, unmanly words, so unlike him, yet from the lips of someone addressed by his name.

For a long moment after I had ceased speaking he lay there so moveless, with his hands tightly clenched and his eyes fixed upon empty space, that I almost feared he had fainted; then he turned his face toward me and spoke in stronger tones than I had supposed him capable of using.

'That letter—did it name that man?'

'What man?' I had purposely omitted the name of the man who had come so opportunely to lead Miss Jenrys away after she had heard the heartless speech from behind the ferns in the conservatory, and while I asked the question I knew to whom he referred.

'The man who came so opportunely after the—after I had gone.'